coal doesn't turn into pearls
by jonissbouquet
Summary: Johanna was never one for consoling people. Katniss was never one who liked to be consoled. Joniss oneshot.


**A/N: **Okay, this is my first fanfiction. I got an account just to post it and I hope it's good and IC and stuff. It's my first time and I hope you like it, because I love this ship.

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><p>Katniss wakes up screaming. It is not abnormal, but she wakes up somewhere alien and new. The panic rushes through her brain, trying to figure out the new smell and the strange positioning of the light on her bed. It is not the bed she shares with Peeta. And this is not District 12.<p>

She stands up, walking to the window with her legs shaking. Katniss flies into a panic attack before she can screw her head on straight. She feels constricted breathing, bubbles of air beneath her tongue. She tells herself she can control her breathing, and control her heart that is beating out of her chest. Because she is powerful and strong... but... and then she coughs and gags. She swallows the bile and takes a deep breath.

"You don't sound so good," says an overconfident voice from behind the door. Slowly, it opens, revealing Johanna.

Katniss realizes where she is. District Seven. Cascadian beauty and a Victor's Village that looks nothing like the one in District Twelve. It does not abet her panic, but the bubbles and gasping stop. The drowning ceases but her shaking limbs and palpitating heart remain.

"The most useful thing I ever learned is that a panic attack can only last for twenty minutes," Johanna says calmly, shutting the door with a click. "So, just keep yourself occupied for twenty minutes."

Katniss realizes why she has always been at odds with Johanna. The cavalier attitude to everything, even after all she has been through. Or maybe Katniss admires that about her. They both were hardened by what they went through. Both built with tough impenetrable walls around their insides.

She blinks, breathes and sits down on the bed.

"How about I tell you a story?" Johanna cocks an eyebrow, looking amused. Katniss wants to shout at her for finding this so funny, but she is preoccupied with the sense of impending doom. "I saw that kiss. That kiss with Peeta."

"There have been a lot of those." Katniss's voice is loose and strange from the weak motions of her lips.

"The cute little one when you were on your cute little watch in the arena. It made you _glow_. I could've used you for a reading lamp," Johanna replies with a smirk. "It was repulsive."

"Have you ever even been kissed? I imagine you've kissed some people. Maybe a few of them liked it," Katniss replies, feeling some of the panic subsided. Johanna rolls her eyes, still seeming far too entertained by her guest.

"I've been kissed. Not that any of them are around to tell the tale," Johanna explains with a small sigh. Katniss sees a slight chink in the armor and her breathing resumes its normal speed. "But that's old news. Would you have liked it if I kissed you?"

Johanna recalls what a quaint prude Katniss was. Now she has an awful lot of respect for the girl, more respect than she has ever had for anyone. Enough that she went out of her way to have Katniss over for a few weeks. She said she needed a break; Johanna said she knew the feeling.

"I'm going to give a tentative _no_," Katniss says, laughing. She sees relief in Johanna's eyes and Katniss briefly thinks that Johanna may have been worried about her.

"Would you like to go out, or wallow in misery for a few hours first?" Johanna turns up a palm and raises her eyebrows.

"I'll get my coat."

* * *

><p>Katniss finds herself surrounded by trees. But they grow in strange patterns, unlike the ones that were grown specifically for harvesting. It seems... natural.<p>

"So, how's day one of your excursion to the wilderness?" Johanna asks, leaves crunching under her heavy boots. Katniss studies her for a moment and shrugs. "We still have six more. I'm pretty sure that you're going to realize you aren't missing out on much once we hit day three and things get _incredibly _boring."

"Boredom is nice," Katniss says, although she is not entirely certain if she believes it or not. Boredom means that thoughts can wander to wherever they want to go. And usually that is to nasty images Katniss tries to forget. "Why do those trees have carvings in them?"

"Kids in love carve their names in them. See the shitty attempts at hearts?" Johanna walks up to one tree in particular, searches for something with only her eyes, and then abandons it with a strange sense of purpose.

She had someone. She had someone once and Katniss never really thought about it.

Katniss wonders what happened to them for a fleeting moment, and then decides not to ask. People don't like to be asked those things. Katniss would hate to be interrogated about every person who was stolen from her since she picked up those berries. Maybe Johanna was robbed too after she picked up that axe.

"They're not very impressive hearts," Katniss assents, realizing she has been staring into space trying to wonder who Johanna was with.

She brushes up against the tree as Johanna delves further into the forest. Her eyes trained for game and Hunger Games catch Johanna's name. But when she glances down to see who the little plus sign adds Johanna to, the bark has been torn from the tree.

Katniss knows instantly that Johanna did it. Like Katniss trying to remove traces of Prim. It is similar, maybe.

"Are you lost?" Johanna calls from a ways down the trail. Katniss purses her lips and catches up.

And so Katniss follows Johanna through the woods.

* * *

><p>It is morning and Katniss is exploring Johanna's house.<p>

"What's that?" Katniss asks, plucking up a strange tube from the dusty mantle of Johanna's fireplace.

"Not yours to be playing with," Johanna replies and Katniss sets it back down. Finally, Johanna sighs. "It's from my games. It was my little token, like your mockingjay. Except a lot more useless."

Katniss picks it up again, regardless of Johanna's feelings about the matter. She sees that there is a lens and puts her eye to it. She instantly recoils, blinking several times. Inside of it is a dramatic reenactment of Effie's hair. Glitter and strange colors.

"If you twist it, it changes," Johanna offers and Katniss hesitantly puts her eye to it. She twists and watches the images change. "It's a kaleidoscope."

"A kaleidoscope?" Katniss cocks an eyebrow, baffled by it. It seems like a strange token, and it reminds her of something you could find in the Capitol, not District Seven.

Johanna shrugs. "It's pretty useless." Pause. "She said that it would help me remember to change my perspective when things got hard. I guess pretending to be weak and then kicking ass could apply."

Katniss watches Johanna carefully and sees the wistfulness in her eyes. Like when Katniss allows herself to remember something painful but even though it hurts, it feels a little bit sugary sweet. It is inexplicable.

She wants to ask Johanna more, but she simply gazes through the kaleidoscope for a while longer, intrigued by the colors. She looks around with it, watching Johanna's mundane home transform into something beautiful and colorful.

Katniss wonders if Johanna ever looked through it in the arena and saw something more beautiful than what it was. But that does not seem like Johanna, who has little appreciation for that kind of thing. Katniss wouldn't; why would someone twice as cold?

"Do you want breakfast?" Johanna interrupts and Katniss nods.

She sets the kaleidoscope down on the mantle gently and walks into the kitchen.

* * *

><p>Katniss wakes up in a panic again. Johanna is there before Katniss even stops screaming, and Katniss is again startled by the fellow victor.<p>

"Need a distraction?" Johanna cocks an eyebrow, as if she can be cavalier and not caring. It makes Katniss feels better about being consoled. Peeta is far more _tender_ about it, which can feel patronizing.

"Yeah," Katniss says, although she is not having a panic attack. She just wants to be distracted, as if such a thing were possible.

"Alright, I'll give you your pick. I tell you a story about Annie's baby or we make out," Johanna says and Katniss blinks twice at the second option. _Ugh_.

"Annie's baby," Katniss sighs, not bothering to snap at Johanna for hitting on her. She has been through far worse than Johanna's fake advances; she has almost grown to like them.

"Alright, so I was visiting and the kid loves me. Well, of course the kid loves me, but he..." And Katniss has stopped listening. Her mind swirls away as she pretends to be present when she is not. Of course she wants to hear about Finnick's son, of course she does.

Johanna notices that Katniss is far gone. She has spent enough of her time around people like them to know that it is bound to happen. But she keeps talking, not to hear the sound of her own voice, but because it is the right thing to do.

Ick. What is it about Katniss that makes Johanna want to straighten her shoulders and be _consoling_? Maybe she is just getting lonely and is ridden with dusty panties. That is definitely it.

It has nothing to do with the girl on fire starting a spark somewhere deep inside of her.

After distracting Katniss, they set out on another adventure.

It is another distraction. Another distraction.

* * *

><p>"Who gave you the kaleidoscope?" Katniss asks as she and Johanna are by a babbling brook. Johanna never was a huge fan of the outdoors, although she feels at home in forests. But Katniss wants to spend all of her time outside, looking at nature. Johanna tolerates it because she has nothing else better to do.<p>

"It isn't like it matters. She's dead," Johanna says with a careless tone but a whole lot of hurt in her eyes. Katniss picks at her lips and wonders what she should say. Words were never her forte, much less words of comfort. "Oh, don't look at me like that. You know how much getting that look sucks. There's no point feeling sorry for me. I don't feel sorry for you, and I sure as hell don't feel sorry for myself."

Katniss is startled by Johanna's outburst. It does not include shouting or a flushed face or a snarl, just a slow shake of her head. She looks beautiful in the patterns made by the leaves and the glint of sun over the evergreen trees in the cascade natural environment. And Katniss thinks about every time Johanna hit on her, thinks about the image burned into her eyes after Johanna stripped down in an elevator.

"She was your girlfriend?" Katniss offers and Johanna shrugs. Not a very helpful answer, but Katniss does not need to know anyway.

"Tell me about you and your dream boy," Johanna interjects and Katniss allows her to brush off the question. Katniss would hate people prying into Prim or... or anybody for that matter.

"He wants children. And a life."

"But you don't?" Johanna looks mildly interested now.

"No. I really don't. There's no point in it," Katniss says, listening to the creek babble, so unaffected by the world around it. "When Effie introduced Peeta and I at the games, she said coal turned into pearls."

It flies over Johanna's head. "Does it not?"

"No. It definitely doesn't. But I think that's pretty accurate. Coal doesn't turn into pearls. I'm not going to turn into what Peeta wants. Maybe he can move on and be that person."

"Time goes on, though," Johanna says with a shrug. She is clearly pretending not to care and Katniss knows exactly how that feels.

"I'm not right for the life he wants. But I guess he only wants it with me," Katniss replies and Johanna is at a loss for words.

"I'm not so great at consoling people."

"I'm not so great at being consoled."

Johanna laughs and Katniss shrugs.

* * *

><p>Katniss wakes up and has another panic attack. Johanna is there, sitting beside her. Katniss waits for her distraction as if this is some kind of tradition.<p>

"She was my girlfriend," Johanna says, a definite deviation from the endless string of teasing remarks Johanna makes. "And I loved her. But she died because of me. There's nobody left I care about anymore."

"What about us?" Katniss asks through her breathless state of panic. The words sound warbled from her gasping and racing heart. "Not _me_, I mean, just the other victors. And others."

"Maybe." Johanna shrugs, furrowing her brow. She does not know what to say. "I don't want to care about anybody. It isn't as if anybody cares about me."

Katniss is put off by the rawness of Johanna's openness in this moment. She never would have expected it in a thousand years.

"I care about you. As much as you get under my skin and piss me off, I care about you," Katniss blurts out. Maybe that counts as consoling.

Johanna pauses. Katniss has never seen her thinking about something so intensely.

"I guess I care about you too. Aren't we screwed now?" Johanna smirks faintly, trying to make it into a joke.

Katniss leans forward and kisses Johanna on the lips. Her breathing slows as the panic fades. She no longer feels that she is going to vomit, or the impending doom. She just feels like she is in a freefall, and she only wants Johanna's lips against hers.

There is no easy road from here on out.

As the kiss breaks, Johanna moves in for more. And Katniss accepts.

Katniss feels as if she has put the kaleidoscope to her eye and seen Johanna as a thousand different colors.

They dig into each other in the cold, crisp cascade morning.


End file.
